THE PANTRY MOUSE 39 
from which it spread long ago to Japan, whence 
we have lately derived the specimens now com- 
monly sold in the animal-stores of our cities 
under the name of dancing or waltzing mice. 
They are small in size, pied black and white 
in a great variety of patterns, and are ex- 
tremely agile and amusing. Their distinguish- 
ing peculiarity, however, is their constant 
whirling about, so that a lot of them together 
seem like a company of dancers waltzing busily 
to some music unheard by us. 
The origin and extraordinary behavior of 
this astonishing race of mice has been the sub- 
ject of much study, which has been summed up 
and extensively added to by Prof. Robert M. 
Yerkes of Harvard University in a book en- 
titled The Dancing Mouse, a Study in Animal 
Behavior (New York, 1907). He regards it as 
highly probable that the Chinese took advan- 
tage of some deviation in captive mice from the 
usual form to develop a special race by means 
of careful and patient natural selection. ‘‘The 
dancing tendency is such in nature as to unfit 
an individual for the usual conditions of mouse 
existence, hence, in all probability, human care 
